One hundred girls in care referred to an adolescent forensic mental health service : Adolescents within the care system.

There is a paucity of literature relating to adolescent females who offend.

This retrospective case note study of 100 consecutive referrals of girls aged 11-17 in care to an Adolescent Forensic Mental Health Service describes a group of disturbed girls at the extreme of the continuum.

Sixty-eight girls had assaulted at least one person ; a further 10 had caused damage to objects ; 76 had deliberately harmed themselves ; 90 had behaved in a way which was against the law in the 6 months prior to assessment, although only 42 had been charged with an offence.

The referrers only correctly documented violent and aggressive behaviours in 54% of cases.

Eleven girls had ever been statemented as having special educational needs.

Seventy-one had been abused in some way, the majority having been multiply abused.

Of the violent girls, 50% had misused substances.

More abused girls had been violent to objects (49.3%) or set fires (21.1%), A high number of deliberately self-harming girls had a mental illness (13.6%), and a significantly high number of deliberately self-harming girls misused substances (50%) and had been sexually abused (53.9%). Areas for future research are discussed.